Van de Velde faces new test to his well-tried sense of perspective

Jean Van de Velde may be absent when this week's Open tees off at Carnoustie but his spirit, and the spirit with which he took his calamitous triple-bogey on the final hole when the tournament was played here in 1999, lives on.

"I am very sad not to be playing," he said from his home in France yesterday. "But golf is not all of my life. It is not what makes Jean Van de Velde. It is part of me, but not me."

The indomitable Frenchman has always had a masterful grip on life's mysteries but even his famously acute sense of perspective is being stretched to the limits these days. In recent weeks, he has been seriously ill and spent yesterday morning in hospital undergoing tests for bone cancer. It was, he insisted, a purely precautionary procedure but it is clear his golf career will be on hold for some time.

"At the age of 41, I still feel that, despite my health, I want to play golf. It's up to me to do what I need to do. I do hope that people will be able to still come and watch me play golf."

The comeback is for later. In the immediate future, there is this week's Open to watch on television and for the cerebral Frenchman that will be something of a first. "I never watch golf on TV but this is one tournament I'm definitely going to look at," he said, adding that he had turned down an offer of commentary work this week because of his health problems.

Only one thing would have tempted him to this corner of the North Sea coast and that would have been if the R&A had broken every rule in its extensive catalogue of tradition and extended him a special invitation to play in the tournament. The public would have loved to see him and he them.

He might even have taken the time to walk over to that spot on the 18th hole where he rolled up his trousers and waded into the burn - a moment in recent golfing history that has been marked by workmen who later rebuilt the wall there and etched the epitaph "Jean Van de Velde 99" into the cement.

"I would have honoured the invite because of everything. I have respect for the tournament and the place and the people that are going to be there, so yes I would have liked to come," he said. "But saying that, would I have been able to compete? I would say the answer to that is 99% no."

Given his current circumstances, it is hard to believe Van de Velde could find anything positive in his absence this week but, true to type, he did: at least he won't have to face endless questions about that infamous day eight years ago when the world stopped to watch him throw away the most famous tournament in golf.

"You get tired of answering the question again and again," he said, laughing. "I said at the time it would last for 20 years, so that means I have still got another 12 years to go."